Happy Hour Discurso

It was as predictable as the sunrise. The Democratic National Committee launched a very good ad hitting John McCain — in an entirely fair and accurate way — for his comments about keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for another century. Given that whenever anyone, anywhere, mentions the words “John McCain” and “100 years” in the same sentence Republicans get apoplectic, it stood to reason that the new DNC ad would cause quite a few GOP operatives to really a blow a gasket.

The Republican National Committee wants CNN and MSNBC to stop airing the DNC’s new national television advertisement, calling it “false and defamatory” and illegally coordinated.

“This is a complaint about the facts that are being misrepresented in the ad, and this being a deliberate falsehood, that we are saying, stations have an obligation to protect the public from airing a deliberate falsehood,” said Sean Cairncross, an RNC lawyer.

The RNC provided no evidence to support their change [sic] that the communication has illegally coordinated, aside for a few newspaper articles pointing out that some Democrats work for both a candidate and the committee, like pollster Cornell Belcher. DNC chairman Howard Dean said this morning that neither campaign saw or heard the ad before the [sic] put it out.

The RNC is ginning up the threat of legal action to give weight to their criticism of the ad’s content. Cairncross would not say whether the party will sue CNN or MSNBC, the two cable networks airing the ad, if they refuse to kill it.

Aren’t they adorable? They’re just like little four-year old tyrants: they go around the playground beating up other kids, but the second somebody hits them back, they run crying to Mommy. Fairly warms my heart, that does. I say we keep hitting. You can go view the awful, mean ad here, along with Carpetbagger’s patient explaination as to why every single point the RNC’s making is complete bullshit.

Last night, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia granted his first broad-based television interview, to Lesley Stahl on CBS’s 60 Minutes. There he explained that the torture of detainees does not violate the 8th Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” because, according to Scalia, torture is not used as punishment:

STAHL: If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib, and they are brutalized, by a law enforcement person — if you listen to the expression “cruel and unusual punishment,” doesn’t that apply?

SCALIA: No. To the contrary. You think — Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.

STAHL: Well I think if you’re in custody, and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody–

SCALIA: And you say he’s punishing you? What’s he punishing you for? … When he’s hurting you in order to get information from you, you wouldn’t say he’s punishing you. What is he punishing you for?

Well, imagine that! By this reasoning, my darlings, any cop in the country can torture information out of you, as long as it’s from a spirit of inquiry rather than punishment. Does anybody else notice the grease on this slope?

When Indiana passed a voter I.D. law, it was ostensibly to protect the integrity of the voting process. What better way to prevent voter fraud than to require those participating in an election to produce identification?

Was there any evidence of a voter-fraud scourge in Indiana? No. Would the law make it harder for “certain kinds” of voters (i.e., the elderly, minorities, and the poor) to participate? Yes. Did this look a whole lot like Republican lawmakers trying to discourage likely Democratic voters from taking part in elections? You betcha.